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PROFILES FROM CHINA 



R O F I 
FROM 
CHINA 

Sketches in verse 
of People ^^ings 
Seen in theQnterior 



L E S 



EUN ICE TIETJENS 




RALPH FLETCHER. SEYMOUR. 

Publishers. F I N E A B.T S BUILDING 

CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 



^\^K-^ 



Copyright IQ17 

h 

Ralph Fletcher Seymour 



JUN -8 1917 



TO MY 
MOTHER 



Thanks are due to the editors of Poetry, 
The Seven Arts, The Chicago Evening Post, 
The Graphic, The Little Review, for per- 
mission to reprint. 



CONTENTS 



PROEM 

The Hand ii 

FROM THE INTERIOR 

Cormorants 15 

A Scholar 17 

The Story Teller 18 

The Well 20 

The Abandoned God 21 

The Bridge 23 

The Shop 24 

My Servant 27 

The Feast 28 

The Beggar 30 

Interlude 31 

The City Wall 32 

Woman 34 

Our Chinese Acquaintance 36 

The Spirit Wall 38 

The Most-Sacred Mountain 39 

The Dandy 41 

New China: The Iron Works ... 42 

Meditation 45 

Chinese New Year 47 



Contents 

ECHOES 

Crepuscule 51 

Festival of the Dragon Boats . . . . 51 

Kang Yi 52 

Poetics 52 

' A Lament of Scarlet Cloud 53 

The Son of Heaven 53 

The Dream 54 

Yin and Yang 54 

CHINA OF THE TOURISTS 

Reflections in a Ricksha 57 

The Camels 59 

The Connoisseur 60 

Sunday in the British Empire: 

Hong Kong 62 

On the Canton River Boat 64 

The Altar of Heaven 66 

The Chair Ride 67 

The Sikh Policeman : a British Subject . 69 

The Lady of Easy Virtue : an American . 7 1 

In the Mixed Court: Shanghai ... 73 



PROEM 



PROFILES 

FROM 

CHINA 



THE HAND 



As you sit so, in the firelight, your hand is the 

color of new bronze. 
I cannot take my eyes from your hand; 
In it, as in a microcosm, the vast and 

shadowy Orient is made visible. 
Who shall read me your hand? 

You are a large man, yet it is small and nar- 
row, like the hand of a woman and the 
paw of a chimpanzee. 

It is supple and boneless as the hands 
wrought in pigment by a fashionable 
portrait painter. The tapering fingers 
bend backward. 

Between them burns a scented cigarette. You 
poise it with infinite daintiness, like a 
woman under the eyes of her lover. 
The long line of your curved nail is 
fastidiousness made flesh. 
1 1 



12 Profiles from China 

Very skilful Is your hand. 

With a tiny brush it can feather lines of 
ineffable suggestion, glints of hidden 
beauty. With a little tool it can carve 
strange dreams in ivory and milky jade. 

And cruel is your hand. 

With the same cold daintiness and skill it 
can devise exquisite tortures, eternities 
of incredible pain, that Torquemada 
never glimpsed. 

And voluptuous is your hand, nice in its sense 
of touch. 

Delicately it can caress a quivering skin, 
softly it can glide over golden thighs 
Bilitis had not such long nails. 

Who can read me your hand? 

In the firelight the smoke curls up fantasti- 
cally from the cigarette between your 
fingers which are the color of new 
bronze. 

The room is full of strange shadows. 

I am afraid of your hand 



FROM 

THE 

INTERIOR 



CORMORANTS 



The boats of your masters are black; 

They are filthy with the slimy filth of ages; 
like the canals on which they float they 
give forth an evil smell. 

On soiled perches you sit, swung out on either 
side over the scummy water — you who 
should be savage and untamed, who 
should ride on the clean breath of the 
sea and beat your pinions in the strong 
storms of the sea. 

Yet you are not held. 

Tamely you sit and willingly, ten wretches to 
a boat, lurching and half asleep. 

Around each throat is a ring of straw, a small 
ring, so that you may swallow only small 
things, such as your masters desire. 

Presently, when you reach the lake, you will 
dive. 

At the word of your masters the parted 
waters will close over you and in your 
ears will be the gurgling of yellow 
streams. 

15 



1 6 Profiles from China 

Hungrily you will search in the darkened 
void, swiftly you will pounce on the sil- 
ver shadow 

Then you will rise again, bearing in your beak 
the struggling prey, 

And your lousy lords, whose rings are upon 
your throats, will take from you the 
catch, giving in its place a puny wriggler 
which can pass the gates of straw. 

Such is your servitude. 

Yet willingly you sit, lurching and half asleep. 

The boatmen shout one to another in nasal 
discords. Lazily you preen your great 
wings, eagle wings, built for the sky ; 

And you yawn 

Faugh ! The sight of you sickens me, divers 

in inland filth ! 
You grow lousy like your lords, 
For you have forgotten the sea. 

Wusih 



From the Interior 17 



A SCHOLAR 

You sit, chanting the maxims of Confucius. 

On your head is a domed cap of black satin 
and your supple hands with their long 
nails are piously folded. 

You rock to and fro rhythmically. 

Your voice, rising and falling in clear nasal 
monosyllables, flows on steadily, mono- 
tonously, like the flowing of water and 
the flowering of thought. 

You are chanting, it seems, of the pious con- 
duct of man in all ages, 

And I know you for a scoundrel. 

None the less the maxims of Confucius are 

venerable, and your voice pleasant. 
I listen attentively 

Wusih 



1 8 Profiles from China 



THE STORY TELLER 

In a corner of the market-place he sits, his 
face the target for many eyes. 

The sombre crowd about him is motionless. 
Behind their faces no lamp burns ; only 
their eyes glow faintly with a reflected 
light. 

For their eyes are on his face. 

It alone is alive, is vibrant, moving bronze 
under a sun of bronze. 

The taut skin, like polished metal, shines 
along his cheek and jaw. His eyes cut 
upward from a slender nose, and his 
quick mouth moves sharply out and in. 

Artful are the gestures of his mouth, elabo- 
rate and full of guile. When he draws 
back the bow of his lips his face is like 
a mask of lacquer, set with teeth of 
pearl, fantastic, terrible 

What strange tale lives in the gestures of his 
mouth ? 

Does a fox-maiden, bewitching, tiny-footed, 
lure a scholar to his doom? Is an un- 
filial son tortured of devils? Or does a 
decadent queen sport with her eunuchs? 



Frofti the Interior 19 

I cannot tell. 

The faces of the people are wooden; only 

their eyes burn dully with a reflected 

light. 
I shall never know. 
I am alien . . . alien. 

Nanking 



20 Profiles from China 

THE WELL 

The Second Well under Heaven lies at the 
foot of the Sacred Mountain. 

Perhaps the well is sacred because it is clean; 
or perhaps it is clean because it is sacred. 

I cannot tell. 

At the bottom of the well are coppers and 
coins with square holes in them, thrown 
thither by devout hands. They gleam 
enticingly through the shallow water. 

The people crowd about the well, leaning 
brown covetous faces above the coping 
as my copper falls slantwise to rest. 

Perhaps it will bring me luck, who knows? 

It is a very sacred well. 

Or perhaps, when it is quite dark, someone 
who is hungry 

Then the luck will be his ! 

The Village of the Mud Idols 



From the Interior 21 



THE ABANDONED GOD 

In the cold darkness of eternity he sits, this 
god who has grown old. 

His rounded eyes are open on the whir of 
time, but man who made him has for- 
gotten him. 

Blue is his graven face, and silver-blue his 
hands. His eyebrows and his silken 
beard are scarlet as the hope that built 
him. 

The yellow dragon on his rotting robes still 
rears itself majestically, but thread by 
thread time eats its scales away, 

And man who made him has forgotten him. 

For incense now he breathes the homely smell 
of rice and tea, stored in his anteroom; 

For priests the busy spiders hang festoons 
between his fingers, and nest them in his 
yellow nails. 

And darkness broods upon him. 

The veil that hid the awful face of godhead 
from the too impetuous gaze of wor- 
shippers serves in decay to hide from 
deity the living face of man. 

So god no longer sees his maker. 



22 Profiles from China 

Let us drop the curtain and be gone ! 
I am old too, here in eternity. 

Pa-tze-kiao 



From the Interior 23 

THE BRIDGE 

The Bridge of the Eight Scholars spans the 

canal narrowly. 
On the gray stone of its arch are carvings in 

low relief, and the curve of Its span is 

pleasing to the eye. 
No one knows how old is the Bridge of the 

Eight Scholars. 

In our house-boat we pass under It. The 
boatman with the rat-like face twists the 
long broken-backed oar, churning the 
yellow water, and we creep forward 
steadily. 

On the bridge the village Is assembled. For- 
eign devils are a rarity. 

The gold-brown faces are not unfriendly, 
merely curious. They peer In rows over 
the rail with grunts of nasal Interest. 

Tentatively, experimentally, as we pass they 
spit down upon us. Not that they wish 
us 111, but it can be done, and the tempta- 
tion Is too great. 

We retire Into the house-boat. 
The roof scrapes as we pass under the span 
of the Bridge of the Eight Scholars. 

Pa-tze-kiao 



24 Profiles from China 



THE SHOP 

( The articles sold here are to he burned at 
funerals for the use of the dead in the 
spirit world.) 

The master of the shop Is a pious man, in 

good odor with the priests. 
He is old and honorable and his white 

moustache droops below his chin. 
Mencius, I think, looked so. 

The shop behind him is a mimic world, a 
world of pieties and shams — the valley 
of remembrance — the dwelling place of 
the unquiet dead. 

Here on his shelves are ranged the splendor 
and the panoply of life, silk in smooth 
gleaming rolls, silver in ingots, carving 
and embroidery and jade, a scarlet 
bearer-chair, a pipe for opium 

Whatever life has need of, it is here, 

And it is for the dead. 

Whatever life has need of, it is here. Yet it 
is here in sham, in effigy, in tortured 
compromise. 



From the Interior 



25 



The dead have need of silk. Yet silk Is dear, 
and there are living backs to clothe. 

The rolls are paper Do not look 

too close. 

The dead I think will understand. 

The carvings, too, the bearer-chair, the jade — 
yes, they are paper; and the shining 
ingots, they are tinsel. 

Yet they are made with skill and loving care I 

And if the priest knows — surely he must 
know! — when they are burned they'll 
serve the dead as well as verities. 

So living mouths can feed. 

The master of the shop is a pious man. He 
has attained much honor and his white 
moustache droops below his chin. 

''Such an one" he says "I burned for my own 
father. And such an one my son will 
burn for me. 

For I am old, and half my life already dwells 
among the dead." 

And, as he speaks, behind him in the shop I 
feel the presence of a hovering host, the 
myriads of the immortal dead, the rulers 
of the spirit In this land 



26 Profiles from China 

For in this kingdom of the dead they who are 
living cling with fevered hands to the 
torn fringes of the mighty past. And if 
they fail a little, compromise 

The dead I think will understand. 

Soochow 



From the Interior 27 



MY SERVANT 

The feet of my servant thump on the floor. 

Thump, they go, and thump — dully, de- 

formedly. 
My servant has shown me her feet. 
The instep has been broken upward into a 

bony cushion. The big toe is pointed 

as an awl. The small toes are folded 

under the cushioned instep. Only the 

heel is untouched. 
The thing is white and bloodless with the 

pallor of dead flesh. 

But my servant is quite contented. 
She smiles toothlessly and shows me how 
small are her feet, her "golden lilies." 

Thump, they go, and thump! 

Wusih 



28 Profiles from China 



THE FEAST 

So this Is the wedding feast ! 

The room Is not large, but it is heavily 
crowded, filled with small tables, filled 
with many human bodies. 

About the walls are paintings and banners in 
sharp colors; above our heads hang in- 
numerable gaudy lanterns of wood and 
paper. We sit in furs, shivering with 
the cold. 

The food passes endlessly, droll combinations 
in brown gravies — roses, sugar, and 
lard — duck and bamboo — lotus, chest- 
nuts, and fish-eggs — an "eight-precious 
pudding." 

They tempt curiosity ; my chop-sticks are busy. 
The warm rice-wlne trickles sparingly. 

The groom is invisible somewhere, but the 
bride martyrs among us. She Is clad 
In scarlet satin, heavily embroidered 
with gold. On her head is an edifice of 
scarlet and pearls. 

For weeks, I know, she has wept In protest. 

The feast-mother leads her in to us with 
sacrificial rites. Her eyes are closed. 



From the Interior 29 

hidden behind her curtain of strung 
beads; for three days she will not open 
them. She has never seen the bride- 
groom. 

At the feast she sits like her own effigy. She 
neither eats nor speaks. 

Opposite her, across the narrow table, is a 
wall of curious faces, lookers-on — chil- 
dren and half-grown boys, beggars and 
what-not — the gleanings of the streets. 

They are quiet but they watch hungrily. 

To-night, when the bridegroom draws the 
scarlet curtains of the bed, they will still 
be watching hungrily 

Strange, formless memories out of books 
struggle upward In my consciousness. 

This is the marriage at Cana 

I am feasting with the Caliph at Bagdad. 

I am the wedding guest who 

beat his breast 

My heart Is troubled. 

What shall be said of blood-brotherhood be- 
tween man and man? 

Wusih 



30 Profiles from China 



THE BEGGAR 

Christ! What is that — that — Thing? 
Only a beggar^ professionally maimed^ I 
think. 

Across the narrow street It lies, the street 

where little children are. 
It is rocking its body back and forth, back 

and forth, ingratiatingly, in the noisome 

filth. 
Beside the body are stretched two naked 

stumps of flesh, on one the remnant of a 

foot. The wounds are not new wounds, 

but they are open and they fester. There 

are flies on them. 
The Thing is whining, shrilly, hideously. 

Professionally maimed, I think, 
Christ! 

Hwai Yuen 



From the Interior 



31 



INTERLUDE 

It is going to be hot here. 

Already the sun is treacherous and a dull 
mugginess is in the air. I note that win- 
ter clothes are shedding one by one. 

In the market-plaCe sits a coolie, expanding in 

the warmth. 
He has opened his ragged upper garments 

and his bronze body is naked to the belt. 
He is examining it minutely, occasionally 

picking at something with the dainty 

hand of the Orient. 
If he had ever seen a zoological garden I 

should say he was imitating the monkeys 

there. 
As he has not, I dare say the taste is ingrained. 

At all events it is going to be hot here. 

The Village of the Mud Idols 



32 Profiles from China 



THE CITY WALL 

About the city where I dwell, guarding it 
close, runs an embattled wall. 

It was not new I think when Arthur was a 
king, and plumed knights before a 
British wall made brave clangor of 
trumpets, that Launcelot came forth. 

It was not new I think, and now not it but 
chivalry is old. 

Without, the wall is brick, with slots for fir- 
ing, and it drops straightway into the 
evil moat, where offal floats and name- 
less things are thrown. 

Within, the wall is earth; it slants more 
gently down, covered with grass and 
stubbly with cut weeds. Below it in 
straw lairs the beggars herd, patiently 
whining, stretching out their sores. 

And on the top a path runs. 

As I walk, lifted above the squalor and the 
dirt, the timeless miracle of sunset 
mantles in the west. 

The blue dusk gathers close 

And beauty moves immortal through the 
land. 



From the Interior '^'^ 

And I walk quickly, praying In my heart that 
beauty will defend me, will heal up the 
too great wounds of China. 

I will not look — to-night I will not look — 
where at my feet the little coffins are, 

The boxes where the beggar children He, un- 
burled and unwatched. 

I will not look again, for once I saw how one 
was broken, torn by the sharp teeth of 
dogs. A little tattered dress was there, 
and some crunched bones 

I need not look. What can it help to look? 

Ah, I am past! 

And still the sunset glows. 

The tall pagoda, like a velvet flower, blos- 
soms against the sky; the Sacred Moun- 
tain fades, and in the town a child laughs 
suddenly. 

I will hold fast to beauty! Who am I, that 
I should die for these? 



I will go down. I am too sorely hurt, here 
on the city wall. 

JVitsih 



34 Profiles from China 



WOMAN 

Strangely the sight of you moves me. 

I have no standard by which to appraise you; 

the outer shell of you is all I know. 
Yet irresistibly you draw me. 

Your small plump body is closely clad in blue 
brocaded satin. The fit is scrupulous, 
yet no woman's figure is revealed. You 
are decorously shapeless. 

Your satin trousers even are lined with fur. 

Your hair is stiff and lustrous as polished 
ebony, bound at the neck in an adaman- 
tine knot, in which dull pearls are en- 
crusted. 

Your face is young and round and inscrutably 
alien. 

Your complexion is exquisite, matte gold over- 
lying blush pink, textured like ripe fruit. 

Your nose is flat, the perfect nose of China. 

Your eyes — ^your eyes are witchery ! 

The blank curtain of your upper lid droops 
sharply on the iris, and. when you smile 
the corners twinkle upward. 



From the Interior 35 

It is your eyes, I think, that move me. 

They are so bright, so black ! 

They are alert and full of curiosity as the 
eyes of a squirrel, and like the eyes of a 
squirrel they have no depth behind them. 

They are windows opening on a world as 
small as your bound feet, a world of 
ignorances, and vacuities, and kitchen- 
gods. 

And yet your eyes are witchery. When you 
smile you are the woman-spirit, ador- 
able. 

I cannot appraise you, yet strangely the sight 

of you moves me. 
I believe that I shall dream of you. 

Pa-tze-kiao 



36 Profiles from China 



OUR CHINESE ACQUAINTANCE 

We met him in the runway called a street, be- 
tween the warrens known as houses. 

He looked still the same, but his French-cut 
tweeds, his continental hat, and small 
round glasses were alien here. 

About him we felt a troubled uncertainty. 

He greeted us gladly. ''It is good" he said 

in his soft French, "to see my foreign 

friends again. 
You find our city dirty I am sure. On every 

stone dirt grows in China. 
How the people crowd ! The street is choked. 

Nong koi chi! Go away, curious ones ! 

The ladies cannot breathe 

No, my people are not clean. They do not 

understand, I think. In Belgium where 

I studied — 
Yes, I was studying in Bruges, study- 
ing Christianity, when the great war 

came. 
We, you know, love peace. I could not 

see 

So I came home. 



From the Interior 37 

But China is very dirty Our priests 

are rascals, and the people I 

do not know. 
Is there, perhaps, a true religion somewhere? 

The Greeks died too — and they were 

clean." 
Behind his glasses his slant eyes were 

troubled. 
"I do not know," he said. 

Wusih 



38 Profiles from China 



THE SPIRIT WALL 

It stands before my neighbor's door, between 
him and the vegetable garden and the 
open toilet pots and the dirty canal. 

Not that he wishes to hide these things. 

On the contrary, he misses the view. 

But China, you must understand, is full of 
evil spirits, demons of the earth and air, 
foxes and shui-mang devils, and only the 
priest knows what beside. 

A man may at any moment be bewitched, so 
that his silk-worms die and his children 
go blind and he gets the devil-sickness. 

So living is difficult. 

But Heaven has providentially decreed that 
these evil spirits can travel only in a 
straight line. Around a corner their 
power evaporates. 

So my neighbor has built a wall that runs be- 
fore his door. Windows of course he 
has none. 

He cannot see his vegetable garden, and his 
toilet pots, and the dirty canal. 

But he is quite safe ! 

Wusih 



From the Interior 39 

THE MOST-SACRED MOUNTAIN 

Space, and the twelve clean winds of heaven, 

And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after 

the slow six thousand steps of climbing! 

This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy. 

Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown 
with flecks of green ; and lower down the 
flat brown plain, the floor of earth, 
stretches away to blue infinity. 

Beside me in this airy space the temple roofs 
cut their slow curves against the sky, 

And one black bird circles above the void. 

Space, and the twelve clean winds arc here; 
And with them broods eternity — a swift, 

white peace, a presence manifest. 
The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. 

This is the end that has no end. 

Here when Confucius came, a half a thousand 
years before the Nazarenc, he stepped, 
with me, thus into timelessness. 

The stone beside us waxes old, the carven 
stone that says: On this spot once 
Confucius stood and felt the smallness 
of the world below. 



40 Profiles from China 

The stone grows old. 

Eternity 

Is not for stones. 

But I shall go down from this airy space, this 
swift white peace, this stinging exulta- 
tion; 

And time will close about me, and my soul 
stir to the rhythm of the daily round. 

Yet, having known, life will not press so close, 
and always I shall feel time ravel thin 
about me ; 

For once I stood 

In the white windy presence of eternity. 

Tat Shan 



From the Interior 41 



THE DANDY 

He swaggers in green silk and his two coats 
are lined with fur. Above his velvet 
shoes his trim, bound ankles twinkle 
pleasantly. 

His nails are of the longest. 

Quite the glass of fashion is Mr. Chu! 

In one slim hand — the ultimate punctilio — 
dangles a bamboo cage, wherein a small 
brown bird sits with a face of perpetual 
surprise. 

Mr. Chu smiles the benevolent smile of one 
who satisfies both fashion and a tender 
heart. 

Does not a bird need an airing? 

Wusih 



42 Profiles from China 



NEW CHINA: THE IRON WORKS 

The furnaces, the great steel furnaces, tremble 
and glow ; gigantic machinery clanks, and 
in living iridescent streams the white-hot 
slag pours out. 

This is to-morrow set in yesterday, the west 
imbedded in the east, a graft but not a 
growth. 

And you who walk beside me, picking your 
familiar way between the dynamos, the 
cars, the piles of rails — you too are of 
to-morrow, grafted with an alien energy. 

You wear the costume of the west, you speak 
my tongue as one who knows; you talk 
casually of Sheffield, Pittsburgh, Es- 
sen 

You touch on Socialism, walk-outs, and the 
industrial population of the British Isles. 

Almost you might be one of us. 

And then I ask : 

"How much do those poor coolies earn a 

day, who take the place of carts?" 
You shrug and smile. 



From the Interior 43 

''Eighteen coppers. Something less than 
eight cents in your money. They are not 
badly paid. They do not die." 

Again I ask: 

"And is it true that you've a Yamen, a police 
judge, all your own?" 

Another shrug and smile. 

"Yes, he attends to all small cases of disor- 
der . For larger crimes we pass the of- 
fender over to the city courts." 



"Conditions" you explain as we sit later with 
a cup of tea, "conditions here are diffi- 
cult." 

Your figure has grown lax, your voice a little 
weary. You are fighting, I can see, up- 
held by that strange graft of western 
energy. 

Yet odds are heavy, and the Orient is in your 
blood. Your voice is weary. 

"There are no skilled laborers" you say, 
"Among the owners no cooperation. 

It is like — like working in a nightmare, 
here in China. It drags at me, it 
drags" 



44 Profiles from China 

You bow me out with great civility. 

The furnaces, the great steel furnaces, tremble 
and glow, gigantic machinery clanks and 
In living iridescent streams the white-hot 
slag pours out. 

Beyond the gate the filth begins again. 

A beggar rots and grovels, clutching at my 
skirt with leprous hands. A woman sits 
sorting hog-bristles ; she coughs and sobs. 

The stench is sickening. 

To-morrow! did they say? 
Hanyang 



From the Interior 45 



MEDITATION 

In all the city where I dwell two spaces only 
are wide and clean. 

One is the compound about the great church 
of the mission within the wall; the other 
is the courtyard of the great factory be- 
yond the wall. 

In these two, one can breathe. 

And two sounds there are, above the multi- 
tudinous crying of the city, two sounds 
that recur as time recurs — the great bell 
of the mission and the whistle of the 
factory. 

Every hour of the day the mission bell strikes, 
clear, deep-toned — telling perhaps of 
peace. 

And in the morning and in the evening the 
factory whistle blows, shrill, provocative 
— telling surely of toil. 

Now, when the mulberry trees are bare and 
the wintry wind lifts the rags of the 
beggars, the day shift at the factory is 
ten hours, and the night shift is fourteen. 

They are divided one from the other by the 
whistle, shrill, provocative. 



46 Profiles from China 

The mission and the factory are the West. 
What they are I know. 

And between them lies the Orient — struggling 
and suffering, spawning and dying — but 
what it is I shall never know. 

Yet there are two clean spaces in the city 
where I dwell, the compound of the 
church within the wall, and the courtyard 
of the factory beyond the wall. 

It is something that in these two one can 
breathe. 

Wiisih 



From the Interior 47 



CHINESE NEW YEAR 

Mrs. Sung has a new kitchen-god. 

The old one — he who has presided over the 
household this twelvemonth — has re- 
turned to the Celestial Regions to make 
his report. 

Before she burned him Mrs. Sung smeared 
his mouth with sugar; so that doubtless 
the report will be favorable. 

Now she has a new god. 

As she paid ten coppers for him he Is hand- 
somely painted and should be highly 
efficacious. 

So there is rejoicing In the house of Mrs. 
Sung. 

Peking 



ECHOES 



CREPUSCULE 



Like the patter of rain on the crisp leaves of 
autumn are the tiny footfalls of the fox- 
maidens. 



FESTIVAL OF THE DRAGON BOATS 

On the fifth day of the fifth month the states- 
man Kiih Yuen drowned himself in the 
river Mih-lo. 

Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, 
and the mountains wear away. 

Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth 
month, the great Dragon Boats, gay with 
flags and gongs, search diligently in the 
streams of the Empire for the body of 
Kiih Yuen. 



51 



52 Profiles from China 



KANG YI 

When Kang Yi had been long dead the Em- 
press decreed upon him posthumous de- 
capitation, so that he walks for ever 
disgraced among the shades. 



POETICS 

While two ladies of the Imperial harem held 
before him a screen of pink silk, and a 
P' in Concubine knelt with his ink-slab, 
Li Po, who was very drunk, wrote an 
impassioned poem to the moon. 



Echoes 53 



A LAMENT OF SCARLET CLOUD 

O golden night, lit by the flame of seven stars, 
the years have drunk you too. 



THE SON OF HEAVEN 

Like this frail and melancholy rain Is the mem- 
ory of the Emperor Kuang-Hsii, and of 
his sufferings at the hand of Yehonala. 

Yet under heaven was there found no one to 
avenge him. 

Now he has mounted the Dragon and has 
visited the Nine' Springs. His betrayer 
sits upon the Dragon Throne. 

Yet among the shades may he not take com- 
fort from the presence of his Pearl 
Concubine? 



54 Profiles from China 



THE DREAM 

When he had tasted In a dream of the Ten 
Courts of Purgatory, Doctor Tseng was 
humbled in spirit, and passed his life in 
piety among the foot-hills. 



YIN AND YANG 

At the Hour of the Horse avoid raising a 
roof-tree, for by the trampling of his 
hoofs it may be beaten down; 

And at the Hour of the cunning Rat go not 
near a soothsayer, for by his cunning he 
may mislead the oracle, and the hopes 
of the enquirer come to naught. 



CHINA 

OF 

THE 

TOURISTS 



REFLECTIONS IN A RICKSHA 



This ricksha is more comfortable than some. 
The springs are not broken, and the seat is 

covered with a white cloth. 
Also the runner is young and sturdy, and his 

legs flash pleasantly. 
I am not ill at ease. 

The runner interests me. 

Between the shafts he trots easily and fa- 
miliarly, lifting his knees prettily and 
holding his shoulders steady. 

His hips are lean and narrow as a filly's; his 
calves might have posed for Praxiteles. 

He is a modern, I perceive, for he wears no 
queue. 

Above a rounded neck rises a shock of hair the 
shade of dusty coal. Each hair is stiff 
and erect as a brush bristle. There are 
lice in them no doubt — but then perhaps 
we of the West are too squeamish in 
details of this minor sort. 

What interests me chiefly is the back of his 
ears. Not that they are extraordinary 

57 



58 Profiles from China 

as ears; It Is their very normality that 
touches me. I find them smaller than 
those of a horse, but undoubtedly near 
of kin. 

There Is no denying the truth of evolution; 

Yet as a beast of burden man is distinctly 
inferior. 

It is odd. 

At home I am a democrat. A republic, a true 
republic, seems not Improbable, a fight- 
ing dream. 

Yet beholding the back of the ears of a trot- 
ting man I perceive It to be Impossible — 
the millennium, another million years 
away. 

I grow Insufferably superior and Anglo- 
Saxon. 

I am sorry, but what would you ? 

One is what one is. 

Hankow 



China of the Tourists 59 



THE CAMELS 

Whence do you come, and whither make 
return, you silent padding beasts? 

Over the mountain passes; through the 
Great Wall; to Kalgan — and beyond, 
whither? 

Here in the city you are alien, even as I 

am alien. 
Your sidling jaw, your pendulous neck — 

incredible — and that slow smile about 

your eyes and lip, these are not of this 

land. 
About you some far sense of mystery, some 

tawny charm, hangs ever. 
Silently, with the dignity of the desert, your 

caravans move among the hurrying 

hordes, remote and slowly smiling. 

But whence are you, and whither do you make 

return? 
Over the mountain passes; through the 

Great Wall; to Kalgan — and beyond, 

whither? 

Peking 



6o Profiles from China 

THE CONNOISSEUR : AN AMERICAN 

He is not an old man, but he is lonely. 

He who was born in the clash of a western 
city dwells here, in this silent courtyard, 
alone. 

Seven servants he has, seven men-servants. 
They move about quietly and their 
slippered feet make no sound. Behind 
their almond eyes move green, sidelong 
shadows, and their limber hands are 
never still. 

In his house the riches of the Orient are gath- 
ered. 

Ivory he has, carved in a thousand quaint, 
enticing shapes — pleasant to the hand, 
smooth with the caressing of many 
fingers. 

And jade is there, dark green and milky 
white, with amber from Korea and 
strange gems — beryl, chrysoprase, jas- 
per, sardonyx 

His lacquered shelves hold priceless pottery 
— peachblow and cinnabar and silver 
grey — pottery glazed like the new 
moon, fired how long ago for a moon- 
pale princess of the East, whose very 
name is dust ! 



China of the Tourists 6i 

In his vaults are incredible textures and colors 
that vibrate like struck jade. 

Stiff with gold brocade they are, or soft as 
the coat of a fawn — these sacred robes 
of a long dead priest, silks of a gold- 
skinned courtesan, embroideries of a 
lost throne. 

When he unfolds them the shimmering heaps 
are like living opals, burning and moving 
darkly with the warm breath of beauty. 

And other priceless things the collector has, 
so that in many days he could not look 
upon them all. 

Every morning his seven men-servants dress 
him, and every evening they undress 
him. Behind their almond eyes move 
green sidelong shadows. 

In this silent courtyard the collector lives. 

He is not an old man but he is lonely. 

Peking 



62 Profiles from China 



SUNDAY IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE: 
HONG KONG 

In the aisle of the cathedral it lies, an army 
rifle of the latest type. 

It is laid on the black and white mosaic, be- 
tween the carved oaken pews and the 
strip of brown carpet in the aisle. 

A crimson light from the stained-glass win- 
dow yonder glints on the blue steel of its 
barrel, and the brown khaki of its 
shoulder-strap blends with the brown of 
the carpet. 

The stiff backs of its owner and a hundred 

like him are very still. 
The vested choir chants prettily. 
Then the bishop speaks : 
"O God, who art the author of peace 

and lover of concord, defend us thy 

humble servants in all assaults of our 

enemies" 

*'Amen!" say the owners of the khaki backs. 

The light has shifted a little. On the blue 
steel barrel of the rifle the glint is tur- 
quoise now. 



China of the Tourists 63 

That will be from the robe of the shepherd 
in the window yonder, He of the quiet 
eyes 

Hong Kong 



64 Profiles from China 



ON THE CANTON RIVER BOAT 



Up and down, up and down, paces the sentry. 

He is dressed in a uniform of khaki and his 
socks are green. Over his shoulder is 
slung a rifle, and from his belt hang a 
pistol and cartridge pouch. 

He is, I think, Malay and Chinese mixed. 

Behind him the rocky islands, hazed in blue, 
the yellow sun-drenched water, the 
tropic shore, pass as a background in a 
dream. 

He only is sweltering reality. 

Yet he is here to guard against a nightmare, 
an anachronism, something that I can- 
not grasp. 

He is guarding me from pirates. 

Piracy! The very name is fantastic in my 
ears, colored like a toucan in the zoo. 

And yet the ordinance is clear : "Four armed 
guards, strong metal grills behind the 
bridge, the engine-room enclosed — in 
case of piracy." 



China of the Tourists 65 

The socks of the sentry are green. 

Up and down, up and down he paces, between 

the bridge and the first of the life-boats. 
In my deck chair I grow restless. 
Am I then so far removed from life, so 

wrapped in cotton wool, so deep-sunk in 

the soft lap of civilization, that I cannot 

feel the cold splash of truth? 
It Is a disquieting thought — for certainly 

piracy seems as fantastic as ever. 

The socks of the sentry annoy me. They are 

too green for so hot a day. 
And his shoes squeak. 
I should feel much cooler if he wouldn't pace 

so. 
Piracy! 

Somewhere on the River 



66 Profiles from China 



THE ALTAR OF HEAVEN 

Beneath the leaning, rain-washed sky this 
great white circle — beautiful ! 

In three white terraces the circle lies, piled 
one on one toward Heaven. And on 
each terrace the white balustrade climbs 
in aspiring marble, etched in cloud. 

And Heaven Is very near. 

For this is worship native as the air, wide as 
the wind, and poignant as the rain, 

Pure aspiration, the eternal dream. 

Beneath the leaning sky this great white 
circle ! 

Peking 



Ch'tua of the Tourists 67 



THE CHAIR RIDE 

The coolies lift and strain; 

My chair creaks rhythmically. 

It is not yet morning and the live darkness 

pushes about us, a greedy darkness that 

has swallowed even the stars. 
In all the world there is left only my chair, 

with the tiny horn lantern before it. 
There are also, it is true, the undersides of 

trees in the lantern-light and the stony 

path that flows past ceaselessly. 
But these things flit and change. 
Only I and the chair and the darkness are 

permanent. We have been moving so 

since time was in the womb. 

The seat of my chair is of wicker. 

It is not unlike an invalid chair, and I, in it, 

am swaddled like an invalid, wrapped 

in layer on layer of coddling wool. 
But there are no wheels to my chair. I ride 

on the steady feet of four queued coolies. 
The tramp of their lifted shoes is the rhythm 

of being, throbbing in me as my own 

heart throbs. 



68 Profiles from China 

Save for their feet the bearers are silent. 
They move softly through the live dark- 
ness. But now and again I am shifted 
skilfully from one shoulder to the other. 

The breath of the coolies is short. 

They strain, and in spite of the cold I know 

they are sweating. 
It is wicked of course! 
My five dollars ought not to buy life. 
But it is all they understand; 
And even I am not precisely comfortable. 

The darkness is thinning a little. 

On either side loom featureless black hills, 

their summits sharp and ragged. 
The Great Wall is somewhere hereabouts. 

My chair creaks rhythmically. 
In another year it will be day. 

Ching-lung-ch la o 



China of I lie Tourists 69 



THE SIKH POLICEMAN: A BRITISH 
SUBJECT 

Of what, I wonder, are you thinking? 

It is something beyond my world I know, 

something that I cannot guess. 
Yet I wonder. 

Of nothing Chinese can you be thinking, for 
you hate them with an automatic hatred 
— the hatred of the well-fed for the 
starved, of the warlike for the weak. 

When they cross you, you kick them, viciously, 
with the drawing back of your silken 
beard, your black, black beard, from 
your white teeth. 

With a snarl you kick them, sputtering curses 
in short gutturals. 

You do not even speak their tongue, so it 
cannot be of them you are thinking. 

Yet neither do you speak the tongue of the 

master whom you serve. 
No more do you know of us the "Masters" 

than you know of them the "dogs." 
We are above you, they below. 



70 Profiles from China 

And between us you stand, guarding the 
street, erect and splendid, lithe and male. 
Your scarlet turban frames your neat 
black head, 

And you are thinking. 

Or are you? 

Perhaps we only are stung with thought. 

I wonder. 

Shanghai 



China of the Tourists 71 

THE LADY OF EASY VIRTUE: AN 
AMERICAN 

Lotus, 

So they called your name. 

Yet the green swelling pod, the fruit-like 

seeds and heavy flower, are nothing like 

to you. 
Rather, like a pitcher plant you are, for hope 

and all young wings are drowned in you. 

Your slim body, here in the cafe, moves 
brightly in and out. Green satin, and a 
dance, white wine and gleaming laugh- 
ter, with two nodding earrings — these 
are Lotus. 

And in the painted eyes cold steel, and on the 
lips a vulgar jest; 

Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, famil- 
iar to the wrists and to the hair of men. 
These too are Lotus. 

And what more — God knows I 

You too perhaps were stranded here, like 
these poor homesick boys, in this great 
catch-all where the white race ends, this 
grim Shanghai that like a sieve hangs 
over filth and loneliness. 



72 Profiles from China 

You were caught here like these, and who 
could live, young and so slender — in 
Shanghai ? 

Green satin, and a gleaming throat, and 

painted eyes of steel. 
Hunter or hunted. 
Peace be with you, 
Lotus! 

Shanghai 



China of the Tourists 73 



IN THE MIXED COURT: SHANGHAI 

Two men sit in judgment on their fellows. 

Side by side they sit, raised on the pedestal of 
the law, at grips with squalor and ig- 
norance. 

They are civilization — and they are very 
grave. 

One of them is of my own people, a small 
man, definite, hard-featured, an accurate 
weapon of small calibre. 

Of the other I cannot judge. 

He is heavily built, and when he is still the 
dignity of the Orient is about him like 
his robe. His head is large and beauti- 
fully domed, his hands tapering and 
aristocratic. 

When he speaks it is of subtleties. 

But when he speaks his dignity drops from 
him. His eyes shift quickly from one 
end of their little slit to the other, his 
mouth, his full brown mouth, moves 
over-fast, his hands flicker back and 
forth. 



74 Profiles from China 

The courtroom Is crowded with ominous yel- 
low poverty. 

The cases are of many sorts. 

A woman, she of the little tortured feet and 
sullen face, has kidnapped a small boy to 
sell. A man was caught smuggling 
opium. A tea-merchant, in dark green 
silk, complains that he was decoyed and 
held prisoner in a lodging-house for ran- 
som. A gambling den has been raided 
and the ivory dominoes are shown in 
court. 

The prisoners are stoically sullen. The odor 
of them fills the room. 

Above them sit the two men, raised on the 
pedestal of the law, judging their fel- 
lows. 

I turn to the man beside me, waiting his case. 

"Tell me" I ask "of these men, which is the 
better judge?" 

He answers carefully. 

"The Chinaman is cleverer by half. He sees 
where the other is blind. But Chinese 
magistrates are bought, and this one sells 
himself too cheap." 

"And the other?" I ask again. 



China of the Tourists 75 

'*A good man, and quite honest. You see he 
doesn't care." 

The judges put their heads together. They 
are civilization and they are very grave. 
What, I wonder, is civilization? 

Shanghai 



31^77-5 



